


Virtue, Courage, Dignity

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ensemble Cast, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is AU: If I had to compare it to anything, I'd compare it to  Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci books. Magic works, but is so incorporated into the everyday that it's "normal" for the people involved. The story is likely to consist of three parts. I'd post it whole, but I just plain got tired of typing, and I'd reached a good posting point. So this time I'm going to do rather as I have done with the "Change" story, and posting in parts, with the extra detail that I know exactly how this one goes, while Change was a blind leap into a premise...one I'm still contemplating and playing with. This story should take about three posts to complete.</p><p>It's inspired by the various "soulmate" fics. With no malice at all meant, "soulmate" AUs fascinate me without making sense, for a range of logical reasons including how I think love works....how it must work to be love in the first place. Again--no malice intended. I love reading them while developing brow-wrinkles as I try to make the premise work for me. This is sort of my answer to what *might* work rather like the "soulmate" magic works in those series--an attempt to come up with a magic that, to me, makes logical sense, within the parameters of fantasy in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Effany's Epiphanies

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin in this is..variable. It does not help that many-many have used Latin for a lotta-lotta over the centuries. The three traits named in the title and the story are intended to resonate with a number of elements: manliness, strength, virtue, goodness, dignity, worth, self-worth, courage, fortitude. All of them are tied connotatively to the Latin cited, and are intended to reflect on Lestrade and what he's questing for.

There is, of course, no one true soulmate. What a notion! A single person out of millions who is uniquely perfect for you? Who you have a chance in hell of finding, out of all Earth’s madding crowd? Will you recognize Chow Hong Hualei, her neat characters marked on your pale flesh, she in China and you in England? Or Mustafa Ala’Waqir, living in Libya, his true name complex and much longer than you’re used to. How will you find him?

Soulmate—what if he is the match for your soul, but not for your groin? What if she’s plain as a board fence? What if he’s stupid and ill-educated, a prince among men, but a prince dethroned and living among the swine?

Relationships change. People change. Your soulmate at ten and your soulmate at fifty will be worlds apart—or should be, if you’re doing it right.

No. It’s ridiculous on the very face of it. Impossible. Rule it out. Now look at the improbable and see what remains…

***

“Learn your loves, find your futures, meet your mates, £ 40,” the sign said in the upstairs bay window in the old brick Victorian on the little road off the corner by the pub nearest Baker Street…or at least, the one Lestrade and John liked best, and Sherlock best tolerated…and vice versa. In the Sword and Grail the clientele seldom offered to beat the bullshit out of Sherlock, regardless of what a prat he was. Lestrade found himself there often enough, and every time he noticed the sign, and let it slip from his mind again.

It was in quaint lettering, not quite blackletter font, but old fashioned. The three statements were printed one below the other, thus:

**Learn Your Loves**

**Find Your Futures**

**Meet Your Mates**

**£** **40**

Every time he walked by, he noticed the sign. Every time, it intrigued him. There were always people out there willing to pay out money for a bit of love magic, he thought. He dragged in enough of the fakes and con artists to have some idea of the harm they did. But there were a few of the real thing out there—registered, licensed by the Ministry of Oracles and Prophets. Mycroft Holmes, for example, was, according to Sherlock, not only a genius—as was clear enough—but a registered prophet. Lestrade had been told that most of the real ones were either employed in highly private positions, veiled in secrecy, or, in the case of the lesser lights, making do, getting by, or not even practicing. He wondered, sometimes, if the practitioner associated with the sign was a crook—or a small-time talent, eking out a living from small change offered by the desperate.

Every time, he felt a flutter of temptation to go up and see. It would satisfy curiosity. It might lead to a minor bust of a low-lying scam artist. It might…

It might be worth plonking down a few tenners to see what was offered.

He didn’t choose to admit that last—the temptation to find a bit of help in a cold world. It was at odds with his pride to admit it. At odds with his self-image—an imaged shared by both his friends and his employers. Greg Lestrade was who he was in both the Met, and more privately with MI5, because he had an easy way with him. He got on with people. A nice chap. A good fellow. He was quick with a smile, unpretentious, forgiving, adaptable, accepting of the peculiarities of others. He was slow to anger, and when he did spark fire, it was a clean, hot flame, leaving little soot or grime to linger after he’d burned off the first fury. He could hold a hell of a grudge, but it took a bit of work and artistry to get him to that point.

In short, he was a nice guy. Nice guys aren’t supposed to be lonely, and if they are, well, they’ve got the right toolbox to deal with it, don’t they? And, yet…

And, yet…

Of course, he wasn’t desperate. There was John, as good a fellow as a man could count amongst his mates—but, really, John was Mary’s and Sherlock’s. Lestrade suspected that once you counted in old army pals like Sholto, he himself wasn’t even a second-tier friend. Third at best. Donovan? Bad move no matter how he played it out. They worked well enough as DI and DS, but to venture into even buddies range beyond that looked like suicide to him. Sally being Sally—gorgeous, fierce, passionate Sally—they’d end up in bed and rip their careers and their friendship to pieces. Or not end up in bed, and do the same for lack of taking the leap. No—much better to never let that fire get started. Molly? Sherlock’s—and Sherlock’s in ways that didn’t make her all that appealing. Lestrade was wary of the willing sacrifices and passive masochists in the world. If nothing else, he thought with a sour frown, it was too close to his own failing. Put up and put out until you can’t bear it any more, then rip it down to bedrock in your anger and pain. No. He didn’t want to go there, either. And Sherlock was Sherlock—a friend, Lestrade supposed, but not of the sort one trusted with, well…much of anything. Not with one’s reputation, one’s heart… Lestrade definitely didn’t trust Sherlock with his trust, redundant though it sounded. Trusting Sherlock was up there with drug abuse, robbing banks, and shagging strangers bareback when it came to high-risk behaviors—thus John’s determination to keep trying it in spite of experience.

His ex-wife was simply not an option, being among the few people for whom he did manage to bear a grudge.

No. Greg was, ultimately, alone. While he was better suited to it than his jovial façade suggested, the silences had begun to ache a bit, like hands after being exposed too long to chilling cold. His heart, he thought, grew arthritic, sore in ways he’d never expected were possible in his youth.

So every time he walked to the pub from the Tube station, or to the Tube station from the pub, he noticed the sign and wondered. Just a bit. Enough to occasionally check his wallet to see if he had a few tenners or a couple score tucked away. Enough to pay the piper.

It never happened, until the day John offered to go back to Greg’s to pick up a jacket he’d left behind at Met the previous week. As the two sloped easily down the pavement, Greg looked up automatically, as he did every time. John’s glance followed his, and he laughed aloud. “All your sorrows cured for two score. I wish.”

“Mostly going to be a Lonelyhearts business,” Lestrade said, using the slang for the lesser witches and fortunetellers who specialized in weak—or more often useless—spells and amulets to help the average Jack or Jill lead a livelier life than he or she currently led. “Cross my palm with silver, meet Prince Charming.”

“Ever go to one?” John asked.

“A few, undercover,” Greg replied. “Doesn’t go further than it takes to convict, though. Don’t think I’ve ever been a full session with anyone—talented or pure rubbish.”

“You ought to try it once,” John said. “It’s an experience. A laugh when they’re bad. A bit of a heart-stopper when they’ve got talent.”

Greg looked at John askance. “You’ve been? I mean, for real? More than once?”

John shrugged and grinned a doggish grin. “Bit of a lark, yeah? Bit of a thrill when nothing better’s on offer. Here in Blighty it’s usually pretty tame. Been to a few real oracles on postings, though. Kandahar, yeah? Once in Morocco. Oh, and one real hair-raiser in Hong Kong who managed to scare me right out a bit of mischief I was involved in. Seemed like a good thing, trying to get medicines to the poor, but what she said, well—it was the usual stuff, a bit hard to interpret, but to me it suggested my partners were more than a bit crooked. I pulled out. A week later they were pulled in for trafficking in body parts to the necro trade.”

Lestrade studied the other man. He was small, and cocky, in spite of that deceptive fuzzy jumper and mild-mannered routine. “You really are a danger slut, aren’t you?”

John shrugged, and scowled. “I’m a sensible man with…well. Yeah. I like a bit of action. Life gets a bit slow if I’m not up and doing something.”

Sherlock and John and Mary. God, and there was a kid in the mix. She’d be lucky if she didn’t grow up to be a comic book heroine with a magic staff and a cloak of invisibility, poor kid.

“Yeah, Ok. So—you want to go up, then?”

John cocked his head. His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Sure. I don’t have much to ask, but what the heck. Should be fun taking you to lose your cherry.”

“’Scuse me?”

John chuckled, and shouldered easily against Greg. “Come on, mate, you’ve never gone past first base from the sound of it. Might as well go up and get the whole four tenner’s worth for once. Go on—go big, for a change.”

So the two men rang, and were sent up by the downstairs tenant, who said the doorbell to the upstairs apartment was broken, and that she served as door warden. They stumped their way up the stairs, and Lestrade knocked on the thin, poorly made modern door, and obvious replacement for something more elegant and substantial from over a century before.

When the door was answered, the person wasn’t what Lestrade had been expecting. The man was round as Mike Stamford, with a merry smile, a pair of workpants that looked to have come from a garage uniform, a pair of bright red braces, a black t-shirt with a howling were-wolf against a shining moon, and a Hawaiian-print shirt over all. A scarlet macaw sat on his shoulder.

“Effany Epiphanies: spotting futures for three generations.” He stuck out a hand. “Hello. Ben Effany. Pleased to meet you. I knew you’d come up one of these days. You’re Lestrade, yeah?” He had a friendly voice to go with his face: pure London, lower middle-class but ‘respectable.’

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, feeling a bit uneasy. “You know my name? That part of your talent?”

The man shrugged as he made way for them to enter his sitting room. “Depends. A bit. Seen you walk past, always knew you’d be up—that bit sang like a crystal wineglass. Name though? I recognized you on a news announcement a few years back. Some murder case. Kept an eye out for you ever since. It’s always nice to know a bit about a client before he comes in, ennit?”

“Um, yeah,” Greg said, with a glance at John, who seemed calm and amused. “Right. And this is--,”

“John Watson,” Effany said, cheerfully. “Seen ‘im on the telly. But he’s not here for me. Not for years yet, and when he does it’s going to be something completely different, to quote the Monty Python fellow. He’s got just enough of the sight to be getting by on, for what he wants.” He leaned over and took something from a basket full of small wrapped items, and tossed it to John, who caught it neatly. “This is all you’ll be wanting for now. It’ll work with your own sight to help you see what relationships you ought to promote. Push friends toward friends, keep your community healthy, yeah? Help you spot people just a bit better than you usually do.”

John looked dubiously at the little packet. “What cost?”

“That one? Free. You’re going to be rewarding me quite enough later, when you really need me. Me, I’m not a vampire or a ghoul. Fair trade, all the way. This is just a courtesy to a future customer. Like a calendar, but more useful now everyone’s got a computer in their pocket. Take it tonight with a glass of lager. Lasts a lifetime. Ingredients and active incantations listed on the inner lining, though you’re welcome to test it before sampling.”

Effany sat heavily in a soft, overstuffed arm chair that appeared to have no working springs. It was in need of cleaning or re-covering. Lestrade could almost believe it needed both. The macaw apparently was not house trained.

The man waved his hand toward another chair, this one an old Gothic piece, in better condition than the host’s. “Sit, sit. Might as well be comfortable. Want a fizzy drink? I think I’ve got some cans in the fridge.”

Lestrade shook his head, mutely. This was not what he’d expected. At all. It was certainly unlike anything he’d experienced doing undercover in his days in Magical Misconduct and Misrepresentation. “No. Just back from th’ pub.”

“Over at the Tart’s Treasures?”

Lestrade grinned at the popular nickname for the Sword and Grail. “Yeah. Nice place.”

“Yeah, but watch out. It’s ominous. Literally. You never know when you’re going to hook onto a hank of karma there, and from there on in, whoosh, no looking back,” Effany said, gloomily. Then he cheered. “Now, then, what are you wanting today?”

Lestrade cocked him a grin. “You don’t know? You’ve already known more than you had any right to.”

Effany shrugged, and the macaw danced on his round shoulder. “I’m an oracle. One of the things we’re stuck with is the question’s not really the question till it’s asked, and then—watch out.”

“That’s a fair warning, for what it’s worth,” John said, as he leaned casually in the door of the little sitting room. “What you ask shapes what he can answer or provide. Ask the wrong thing and you’ll get an answer that’s no use to you. Think what you want to know.”

Lestrade looked back and forth between the two men. “Can I ask help working it out, then, before I ask?”

Effany grinned. “You can ask. We can try. May still be wrong, but I’m happy to try.”

Lestrade considered, then shot an uneasy glance at John. “Um…”

“Let me guess,” John said, chuckling. “Twooo Wuvv, Princess-Bride style.”

He snorted. “I’ll settle for true friendship. Just…” He ducked, and looked at his hands. The band of pale skin where he’d once worn his ring had long since faded. There was no sign on his hands that he’d ever been valued. “Just less alone.” He looked up into Effany’s eyes—soft brown, the color of milk-coffee. “I want to know how to find—“

Before he could finish, Effany cut across his words. “Eh, careful. I can see that one’s got a hole in it that fate and perversity could drive a lorry through. You’re a likeable man, DI Lestrade. Ask for help finding friends and you’ll get something about as useful as a Geiger counter in a uranium mine—you’ll drown in the possible choices.”

“He’s got a point, Greg,” John said, studying his friend with suddenly serious attention. “A man like you has a possible friend around every corner. Maybe even ten. You’re a likeable man, and willing to meet anyone more than halfway. What you need is some help finding the best friends—the worthwhile ones for you. The ones worth cultivating.”

“Not the easy, common sort, either,” Effany said, warming to the discussion. “You’ll never lack a mate to go to a football game, if you want one. Or a chap to chat with in the pub of an evening.”

“Wants and needs, wants and needs,” the macaw shouted, and marched over the back of the chair to the nearby bookshelf, that he scaled with both feet and claws, until he reached the top shelf. He leaned far over, then, staring at Lestrade, and shouted, “Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon, all I want is loving you and music, music, music.” He danced an odd shuffle, then settled, croaking in satisfaction.

“Is the bird part of the oracle?” Lestrade asked, warily.

Effany shrugged. “Me, I think he’s possessed of a minor sprite of some sort, so it’s possible. But I’ve never managed to make reliable sense of most of what he says. In this case, though, if you like, I’ll say that you want to sort out what you want and what you need—and what you want your future friends to want and need. For example, do you want someone who’s going to pine for you?”

Lestrade frowned. “Maybe…a little? But not a lot, I’d suffocate.” He thought some more, and struggled, feeling John’s eyes on him as he tried to work out his own statement. He wished he hadn’t brought John, now, but if he hadn’t he wouldn’t be here now at all. “I…want someone to trust. Someone who will last, and who I’ll enjoy having last. I don’t need perfect, but I’m tired of feeling like it’s always make-do and make-shift and nothing that matters enough for anyone to…” He gritted his teeth, and forced himself to say, “I’m tired of always being third-tier. Not even ‘also ran.’ I’m tired of just being a good guy until the _right_ guy comes along.” And if John heard the small, hurt part of Lestrade that bled when Sherlock walked away to John without a glance back at Greg, so be it. And God knows, anyone could look at his ex-wife and see that wound bleeding him white. “I want someone to trust to care, and keep caring. And to understand—at least some of what I think and know. And someone who’ll be glad of me, and who I’ll be glad of. Mutual, yeah?”

He sighed, then, and felt hope and pride and energy leak out of him. It had felt almost cocky coming up here with John. Now here he was in some poor bastard’s flat, surrounded by furniture that looked just about exactly as battered and distressed as his own second-hand charity-shop scrapings, with a bird shouting at him, and a stranger and John Watson hearing him say the simple, plain truth: that he was fifty, with no marriage, no lover, no friend who counted him worth more than a belated, “Yeah, we’ve got to invite Greg, too,” kind of backhanded consideration. It might be true that he was “likeable.” He might never be without a friend. But, like oatmeal porridge or canned vegetables, he wasn’t apparently the sort of person who stirred much more than approval, not passion.

Then John said, “Huh. Not a bad wish-list, that.” And Effany said, “Very nice. It might have been better with a few riders excluding crazy and dangerous, but given your own personality, I think the worst of the nutters are ruled out. I can work with this.”

Lestrade traced the carved wood of the chair arm. “It’s not—“

“Shut up, you prat,” Effany said. “Please, you got a decent wish out first shot. No mucking it up by saying things like ‘It’s not important,’ or ‘I really don’t need it,’ or ‘this is probably just some kind of joke.’ That kind of thing gets worked into the Work, and the next thing you’re pulling mimes and idjits who do stand-up on open mic night. Never trivialize your wishes. Screws the vibe on the Aether like nobody’s business.” He looked at Lestrade reprovingly, and the macaw leaned down again and squawked at him.

Lestrade raised his hands. “Oi! I surrender! I’ll shut it. What next, then?”

Effany frowned, and pulled out a basket similar to the one filled with wrapped “favors” like he’d given John. It was round, and made of something less smooth and regular than willow—the slim branches had clipped stubs where still more minor branches had been trimmed away, and a faint but complex grain more interesting than the almost untextured  surface of willow. In the deep bowl of the basket were stones and sticks, paper flowers, metal charms—all sorts of things.

“This wish wants something solid and true to hold it,” he said, frowning and running his fingers through the collection. “Let me see what I can see.”

He turned the assortment, cradling it in his palm, frowning, moving it over and over like a churning current in a tidal pool. Lestrade saw items rise to the surface and fall away again: a prism like a tear drop, an acorn set in a silver cage, a rust-brown flint worn soft as satin, a bone fetish shaped like a penis, a delicate fairy in gold or gilt…

“There,” Effany said, fingers gripping something firm. He drew his hand out, and opened it. On his pink, soft palm sat a tangle of silver and chain. “Huh,” he said. He set the basket on the floor by his chair, and poked curiously at the tangle, then laughed. “Well-met, then, on an auspicious day, DI Lestrade. Look what came in the draw for you.” He tipped the muddle into Lestrade’s hand.

A moment later Lestrade laughed.

“What is it,” John asked, leaning close, as he frowned at the collection.

Lestrade untangled it, laying it out carefully. “Old bobby’s whistle—not standard issue, but a silver one. Occasionally the departments would give them as awards, sometimes a man’s friends or team would pitch in and give one as a sign of appreciation, or to celebrate a retirement or something. This one went with this,” he said, touching the ornate shield on a field of fancy-etched foliage and flowers. On a ribbon over the shield itself was a motto saying, “Virtus, Fortis, Dignus.” Below the arching strip, on the shield proper, was a gryphon rampant in beautiful high relief—the kind of work that seemed common on Victorian pieces, and almost unknown in modern times. On the back of the medal was a simple inscription in a flowing cursive script: “For the Gov, with love and respect.” He turned to the whistle again, where once more the gryphon reared high over the same Latin words.

“Now if only I read Latin,” Lestrade said, pretending the old gift to some copper long gone wasn’t tightening his throat.

Effany smiled. “Roughly? Virtue, strength, and dignity. But there are layers. It’s manly virtue, courage as well as strength, and worth as well as dignity. Whoever he was, his people thought well of him…and I suspect he thought well of them. He took good care of it.”

“Perfect,” John said, softly, his hand coming to rest on Lestrade’s shoulder. “Couldn’t be better.”

“It really couldn’t,” Effany said. “With an anchor like that, well—carry it with you, touch it, focus on it, and it will prove a splendid holdfast for your quest. Eventually you’ll be imbued with the spell yourself, and you’d be able to lose the anchor without effect, but it’s always good to start with something like this, so suited to both the quest and the questor.” He rose, then, and went to his kitchen, coming back with three unmatched shot glasses—one plain glass, one beautiful blown glass with looping swirls of blue and green, and one cut crystal, bristly with fancy facetted fern patterns. In his other hand he carried a bottle of Bushmill’s scotch.

“Bit of ritual,” he said, apologetically. “Just works better if you do something to mark the action.” He handed John the plain shot glass, Lestrade the cut glass, and himself the blown glass, and then filled them. “It’s like a toast, as far as you two are concerned,” he said, smiling. “I say a lot, most of it a bit muddled. DI Lestrade, you stand there and wish as hard as you can for what you said earlier: you might even want to stick to the Latin motto, there—I’m planning on it. Dr. Watson, you just hope for the best for your friend, here. Right?”

John nodded. Lestrade said, “Yeah. And—hell. If you’re going to be casting spells for me, it’s ‘Greg.’ Ok?”

Effany Smiled, round face wreathed with pleasure. “Well, now, that’s what I call gentlemanly behavior. I’d be honored, Greg. Now, just squinch your eyes, and wish. Keep it simple: to be able to find the worthy ones—the ones who will be good for you, and you for them, and who will be good for lifetimes. Real friends, yeah?”

Greg nodded. “Yeah.” Then he shut his eyes and began to wish. He felt a complete idiot, but he’d never wished harder. It was odd—even this strange, short time in this dingy little room with round, amiable Ben Effany and dry, tough John and the crazy macaw seemed to hum with possibility—with what friendship was supposed to be.

He held it tight. To be virtuous, brave, and worthy—to have friends who were likewise. To cherish each other, the way those men years ago appeared to have valued their Gov, and he them. To be valued for what he was: a good copper, a good spy, a good man—a good friend. No more. No less.

Whatever Ben was doing, it felt like energy washing over him. He could hear chanting, but it wasn’t his concern. His concern was to focus on how much he wanted a bit of what John and Sherlock and Mary seemed to be building. To have a friend whose face would light when he came in. Who’d miss him come the day he died…or vice versa, he supposed. But he wanted something more than the cold, icy nothing that seemed to be taking over his life, year by year. He held onto the fob and whistle, feeling the smooth, tubular barrel of the whistle, the jagged jigsaw edge of the fob with its ornate fancy work.

There was a flash, and the macaw squalled.

“Well, that went quite nicely, if I do say so!” Ben said. He studied Lestrade, and said, “Have you been tested for a gift?”

“Trace of finder,” Lestrade said, then, blushing, conceded, “Bit more than a trace. Finder and summoner. Bit of anchor, too. Works for what I do—Detective, head of a team.”

Ben nodded, and said, “It will amplify the effect, if you’re lucky and work at it.” He stretched, then. “I hate to bring up the ugly topic of lucre, but…”

“Job like this is more than two score for a quick reading, yeah?” Lestrade asked, kicking himself for not asking before the work was done. He hoped it wouldn’t be prohibitively expensive, but wasn’t sure. Bespoke, made-to-order magic tended to be pricy.

Ben smiled. “You came up for a sample, and I was interested. Make it the two score, on one condition—you come back every so often to tell me how it’s working for you, yeah?”

“I’ll do that,” Lestrade said with a smile, then added, “I’ll even bring some beer for us and some peanuts for the bird.”

“Oi! Can’t have you spoiling my bird!” Ben said, laughing. Then the three men found themselves for one dazzling, happy moment in suspension—friendship, satisfaction, and optimism sweeping through them. Even when it faded a bit, a happy fizz of mutual appreciation lingered on.

“How do I use it?” Greg asked.

“Keep it with you. Handle it, knowing what it is. If things go well, you’re going to start noticing a sort of glow, or aura, or warmth—something in your sensory set is going to start developing when you look at people. With luck you’ll start noticing some kind of pattern—people you like, people who like you, ways you like each other. With more time it should develop into a fairly complex sense. Just one thing—don’t mistake bright or strong for ‘best.’ You really are a likeable fellow. You’re going to meet a lot of people who can become friends with you almost instantly if you give them a chance, and who will feel it very strongly. That doesn’t mean they’ll be good friends, though, or the ones you want. Learn to look for the hidden treasures, the ones who, with investment, may be both strong and deep. Anchored.”

John hummed under his breath. “Sort of like surgeon’s sight, only backward. We develop a similar sense for damage—what’s just showy, bloody, but superficial, and what’s deep and needs attending to.”

“Yes.” Ben glanced at Greg. “Hold it tight and look. Feel. See what you can sense here, with us. We’re safe enough.”

Lestrade clung to the little heap of silver in his palm, and looked. He scowled with the effort, glancing from John to Ben. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere until, in frustration, he shut his eyes, and realized there was a glowing after image he hadn’t seen through his true sight.

John glowed like a steady beacon, bright and clear, and something—some subliminal sense—left an odd impression of a single ringing bell singing out in the distance. He risked opening his eyes. John was still there, and now he could hang on to the faint impression of glow, too. John smiled at him, a wry, tough, John-ish smile that came across clean and sound and reliable. The sight, the sense, left him feeling closer to John—more valued, and more aware of valuing in return. John was a good chap. A bit crazy around the edges, but, hey—he was still John; good John Watson.

He glanced at Ben, and looked away.

“Hell,” he said, “either you’re a good bet as a friend or you’re that false-gold you warned me about. Which is it?”

Ben shrugged, and grinned. “No idea. But—if it matters, I like you. You really are quite a likeable man. I’m willing to go for ‘true friends’ if you want to try coming around every so often.”

Greg grinned a crooked grin. “Hell, why not?” They beamed at each other.

When Greg and John finally made it back down and out of the building, Greg said, “Well. That was more exciting than I expected.” He traced the whistle and fob shoved deep in his pocket. “That was something.”

“Yeah, it was,” John said, then, tentatively, “If I don’t tell your wish…can I tell Sherlock and Mary about it?”

Lestrade considered, then said, feeling relaxed in ways he hadn’t for some time, “Hell, yeah. Tell who you like what you like, so long as it’s true. I trust you.” He smiled at John, and the two headed together in good spirits for the Tube station.


	2. Dignus et Honoratus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg continues to integrate with his nice new charm; in the meantime, almost unnoticed by him, his circle of friendship is growing and getting stronger and deeper.
> 
> I do hope I manage to include a bit of what's going on "off screen," in the next chapter. Push a pebble off a mountain top, and sometimes you start an avalanche in response.

***

“Goin’ out to the Tart’s,” Greg said, calling Ben Effany two weeks after getting his charm. “Thought I’d ask you along, yeah?”

He could hear the pleased response in Ben’s voice. “Me? I mean—yes. I’d like that.”

“Can’t promise _that_ ,” Greg said. “Meeting with John and his best mate, Sherlock. John you’ve met, yeah? Sherlock’s a bit of a twat, though. Good friend, but…yeah. Bit of a twat.”

“From what I’ve seen on the telly and online, I thought maybe,” Ben said, laughter hidden under superficial calm. “But, hell. Been forever since I’ve been out for a pint. What time?”

“Seven-ish. I can stop by and we can walk over together, if you’d like.”

“Sounds good. Count on me for a round, then.”

“Hey, more rounds the merrier,” Greg said. “Always good to have another to buy a round…’specially as Sherlock’s likely as not to duck out on his round.”

Greg got to Ben’s early, and went up under the watchful eye of the downstairs tenant. He greeted the macaw and learned his name was Sweetness, “on the same principle you give a name to the Good Folk—say what you’d like ‘em to be, not what you find ‘em to be. Always safer…” They discussed the relative merits of jeans with a black t-shirt with a blue unicorn and a blue Hawaiian shirt over, or chinos with a black t-shirt with a red dragon and red Hawaiian shirt over. They mutually agreed that the unicorn was too likely to attract virgins, which Ben was hoping to avoid.

“These days they’re either too young for me—or they’re not going to be interested in anything more than my t-shirt in any case.”

“Tell me about it,” Greg grumbled, cheerfully. “Been so long since I got a leg over I think I’ve forgotten how.”

Ben snorted. “No one forgets that, my friend. No one.”

Greg, triggered by the word friend, studied him, and was pleased to find the rich, warm sense of friendship still there from the last time. He considered it, picking apart bits of the aura—odd notes of plum cake and brandied hard sauce, a rum toddy, a warm sunset. The more he paid attention the more unexpected bits and pieces he sensed—a speckled, tawny salmon leaping at a floating hazelnut, a gold chain coiled in the cup of a palm…

“Looks like you and the spell are settling in with each other,” Ben said, amused.

Greg jumped, and blushed guiltily. “Sorry. No manners.”

Ben blew a raspberry. “’S what it’s for, y’ berk. Glad to see you using it. What you think?”

Greg risked a grin, aware that it was a bit shy—but, hell. He felt a bit shy. “I think maybe you’d be a good friend. If you’re interested.”

“If I weren’t at least a bit interested, I wouldn’t look like a good friend,” Ben said. “Much less be goin’ to the Tart’s with you.” He slipped on the red Hawaiian shirt, all scarlet background and orange-gold hibiscus flowers. “Come on. Don’t want to keep your other friends waiting.”

Later that night, over pints of bitter, he instructed Lestrade in the uses of the charm, with John and Sherlock listening in and asking questions or making comments.

“It won’t always tell you the same thing,” Ben said. “People change. You want to be sure what you’re seeing, not just go by one meet-up. It’s a help, yeah, but it’s possible magic, not the stuff in fairy tales.”

“What good is it, then,” Sherlock scoffed. “Reliability would seem the only redeeming value of a spell or charm.”

John smacked his friend’s arm with the back of his hand. “Sherlock, don’t be a mutt. You’re smarter than that. What good would a telescope be if it always showed you three ships on a daylight ocean? You want to see what’s there, and what’s there can change, yeah?”

“Right,” Ben said, nodding. “But the real friends—the ones you keep and who keep you—it’s steady, you know? I mean, it changes, some, and it should, but there’s something solid there, too.”

“So I want the ones who are always friendly, same today, same tomorrow, same forever.”

Ben frowned. “Nnnno. Not exactly. The ones who are…” he sighed. “I don’t know. You’ll see more of them. Learn more. What you learn, it matches—all the way down. It’s all of a piece, and it’s all part of something you like, and that’s the bit that stays pretty steady. Not perfectly. Just…” He sighed again, and threw his hands up. “It’s like how you know friends without a charm—you just see better, and see more. Like wearing glasses—wearing glasses doesn’t so much change what you see or how you see, it changes how well you see.”

“Bit more than that, though,” Greg said, frowning as he thought about using the charm. “Mycroft said it had a bit of finder talent in it, yeah?”

Sherlock sat up, and blinked in surprise. “Mycroft’s seen the charm?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“He’s really looked at it?”

“Yeah. Held it and everything,” Greg said. “Made me do the whole mother-may-I, Simon-says thing about permission before he picked it up, too. He made some kind of comment about how it was good I used the form with the hurt-me-not disclaimer, too.” He frowned. “I think he did do something to it. I didn’t want to ask what, though.”

Ben cleared his throat. “If I may?”

Greg fished the charm out, and offered it. Ben’s hand hovered, but he waited, eyes meeting Greg’s.

“Oh, yeah. ‘You may take it in hand, an’ it harm me not.’ That’s the old form, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, picking up the charm. He frowned as he considered it. He looked over at Sherlock. “Your brother’s a mage like you?”

Sherlock sniffed. “My brother’s a mage. Like me? No. I’m finder and seeker and riddle-solver and judge, mostly. Bit of a warrior talent on the side. Mycroft’s oracle and shield-man and a healthy dose of clever-man into the bargain.”

“Clever-man,” John said, caught between being impressed and disapproving. A clever-man was the down-and-dirty, rural form of high wizardry…enough so that serious professionals could spend entire evenings over beer discussing who’d win in a serious fight, a high wizard or a clever-man. Still, Greg could see all the reasons for John’s surprise. “I’d expect he’d b e a wizard if he had that skill-set,” John continued, frowning. “I’d expect him to be graduate-level from Oxford or Cambridge, come to that.”

“He got his Oxbridge degrees in other things,” Sherlock said, voice dry. “He picked up his clever tricks as a boy, before we came out in the world, and he’s never stopped learning. He says there’s a lot to be said for the clever way in his line of work. If nothing else, clever is as clever does—a clever-man’s focus is on getting the job done, however it works. Not much temptation to get all ivory tower theoretical when you’re clever trained. Can’t say the same for high wizardry.”

Ben grunted. “That will explain it. He’s not just meddled, he’s meddle sly-style. I can barely track what he’s done, and I wouldn’t have spotted it if Greg hadn’t told me he’d been at these.”

“What _has_ he done?” Greg asked, suddenly uneasy.

Ben laughed. “Nothing bad. No fear, mate. Near as I can tell he’s sweetened it with a bit of sweet-calling, to bring the right people to you—goes with the finder bit the spell pulled from you like a treat. And something…” he frowned, probing. “I think…” He glanced at Sherlock. “Did you say your brother had some shielding?”

“Tons,” Sherlock said, dryly. “Shield and clever—that’s Mycroft.”

“Bit over-protective, eh?” Ben said, eyes crinkling.

“You could say that,” John chimed in. “You could also call him a broomstick brother, always hovering overhead ready to come to the rescue.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Bet smart-arse here’s been grateful for it a time or two, yeah?”

Sherlock had the grace to look abashed. John hunched and scowled. He and Mycroft had an uneasy relationship, bouncing between the things John wasn’t allowed to know—and the effect those secrets had on him. It was seldom entirely clear sailing between them.

“Mycroft’s solid,” Greg said, knowing John couldn’t and Sherlock, sulky baby brother that he was, wouldn’t. “So, he’s put some kind of protective element in?”

“Looks to me like a heart’s balm, and a harm-me-not.” Ben pondered. “It’s good, though—good work with good intent. Either he likes you, or he’s too damned proud to do less than good work regardless.”

“Proud,” John muttered. Sherlock, though, frowned, a crease forming over his nose as he thought about it. He didn’t say anything, though, just reaching for the charm only to have Ben snatch it out of his reach.

“Grabby brat,” he said, easily. “Back orf, y’ berk. No grabbing another man’s stuff without asking. Not mannerly.”

“I’m not mannerly,” Sherlock said, with sudden amusement. “Ask anyone.”

“You’ll be mannerly around me,” Ben said, “Or I’ll jink your luck sidewise.”

Sherlock started to snap, then closed his mouth, and considered, then said, “You wouldn’t.” He sounded almost sure, but not quite.

“Probably not,” Ben said, with a wicked grin.

“I can’t…deduce it,” Sherlock said.

“Nope, you can’t,” Ben said, and settled into drinking his bitter, a satisfied smirk on his face.

Later, on the way back to Ben’s apartment, Greg said, “Would you really jink his luck? He needs it, you know. He runs some pretty real risks.”

Ben thought about it, then said, “Maybe I’d jink a single thread. Never get a decent draw of beer again in his life, or until he said ‘sorry.’”

“I didn’t think you licensed sorts jinked things.”

Ben chuckled. “I’m mostly good. I’m not all good.”

Greg considered this—then gripped the charm tight, and looked, peering with both charm and his own finder sight.

No, he thought. Ben wasn’t all good—but he was good in the ways that counted. He pushed as hard as he could against the power of the spell, and felt something answer soothingly.

Still, he thought, he might ask Mycroft if the harm-me-not would help him detect someone crooked hearted. He suddenly wanted to know.

***

 

The next time he saw Mycroft, though, he was too distracted to remember the question.

The last time he’d looked at Mycroft’s aura, it had been out of sight—always around the next turn in the road, always in the corner of his eye, always a hint in his mind, no more. This time, though, it was like stepping into the greenwood, with summer full on them and vacation stretching out forever. He was flooded with hints and images—the scent of honeysuckle, the hum of bees in an elder tree, the leap of rabbits startled out of the clover, and always, always the whisper of poplar leaves and the sharp, bright music of songbirds.

God, Lestrade thought, trying to damp it down. God. This was _Mycroft_? The Iceman was this lunatic summer thicket, private and sweet and safe and thrilling? Sunlight spearing through forest shadows? A sense of red deer in full antler peering at him out of the dim dark of the deeper glades? _Mycroft?_

“Um…” Greg said, trying to clear his head of the onslaught of sensory messages. “Sorry. Still getting used to using the charm. Any idea how to turn the volume down on something like this?”

Mycroft frowned, amusement and bewilderment mingled. “It’s acting up for you?”

“It seems to channel you a bit, er, loudly. Yeah. Loud.”

“Huh,” Mycroft said—a sound so unexpectedly informal Greg gave a sharp crack of laughter.

“Sorry.”

Mycroft waved it away with a prim, but amused smile. “No need.” He cocked his head in that crow-with-a-shiny-thing way he had, and said, “But do you mind if I look at your charm again? I was going to ask anyway, you know. I’ve got something for you.” He looked down, then, and Greg had the sudden sense the man was ducking away—a red deer fading back into shadow, a sly, shy fox disappearing into the thorn bush. The poplar’s hissed…

“Um, sure,” he said, and fished in his pocket, pulling the charm out easily. He offered it to Mycroft, saying reluctantly, “Yours to hand, an’ it harm me not.”

Mycroft nodded, smiling warm approval. “Don’t forget to use that. Even with me. It’s a good habit to get into.”

“Seems insulting.”

“No more than shaking hands,” Mycroft said. “Prove to both people you’re not holding iron or wand.” He traced the whistle with his index finger, and smiled at it, as though he’d grown fond of the stubby silver tube for its own beauty and graces. “Oh, very good. Effany’s work is holding well, even taking into account that he’s had a chance to do maintenance on it since I saw you last. It’s settled into your own talent, too—a few more months with it and you’d be able to discard the charm, if you chose. Until then…” He stroked the whistle again, and suddenly Greg’s sense of Mycroft’s aura softened, and seemed to step back—no less clear, somehow, but less urgent. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you. What does it mean, to pick you up like that?”

Mycroft shrugged, and didn’t meet his eye. “There’s no doubt some degree of affinity,” he said, with his usual cool reserve. “Harmonic accord of some sort.” Then, with a smile, he opened his desk drawer and drew out a small box, neatly wrapped with sober paper of dove grey with an elegant poplar leaf pattern in beige. “For you.”

Greg took it, gingerly. “A present?”

“To go with the charm. It seemed entirely ridiculous not to offer this, as I had it, and it was a perfect match.” Mycroft watched Greg, eyes still, face frozen in a poised, artificial smile.

Greg frowned—the exterior signs were all Iceman. The aura, though was alive with birds shouting from poplars rustling as though a storm were rising. In the corners of his eyes he though he caught sudden flashes of amber and gold.

He shook the box, and noted that while Mycroft’s face remained still, in his aura the wind swirled and jigged. Greg closed his eyes, dropping his own shields, leaving only those Mycroft had put in place.

The wood was real—alive. With his eyes shut he could see. He could feel the grass whipping around his ankles, swirling over his shoulders. A little titmouse chittered from a nearby branch; a crow did barrel rolls in the sky.

Someone is a bit excited, Greg thought in sudden amusement. Who’d have thought it? He opened his eyes, and carefully picked open the wrapping paper, easing up the tape to avoid tearing the elegant covering. In his mage-sense a crow scolded and chattered. Greg felt his mouth creeping into a grin without even opening the box, brought to near-giggling by the impatient crow in Mycroft’s aura.

“I do have other appointments,” Mycroft drawled, voice cool and dismissive.

“Need to take time over gifts,” Greg replied, still grinning down at the little box. “Got to appreciate ‘em, yeah?”

Mycroft actually huffed.

Greg finally drew the cover off the box. Inside sat a fat silver pocket watch with a complicated chain ending in a large clip Greg suspected was modern—it looked too much like a sterling silver belaying clip to be period. The watch, though—

He picked it up, whistling under his breath. It was round and fat and weighty, with a gorgeous gryphon rearing up on the front cover. The back cover was marked out with a series of nesting circles, forming a sort of bulls-eye pattern. Clipped to it with a fancy old Victorian connector was a stout chain that screamed “Sterling,” as did the two other chains running up to the belaying clip.

“My God,” he said, stunned. “It’s incredible. Amazing.”

“Say fantastic and Sherlock will show up thinking you’re talking about him,” Mycroft said, tartly, but his head was up, his nose was in the air, and he was smirking—and that aura of his was all gold and sunshine and bees in the elder blossom.

“I can show you how to put it all together,” Mycroft said. “If you’d like.”

“You’d better,” Greg said. “I don’t have a clue.”

Mycroft slipped a neat, elegant folding knife with a mother-of-pearl handle from his pocket, and opened one blade, and withdrew from the case a slim pair of tweezers. He put Lestrade’s charm on the desk-top, then held out his hand for the watch and chains. In seconds he’d managed to force the first terminal ring open on the longest chain, and quickly stripped the whistle from the ring that held it. The tweezers let him pinch the chain shut, and he repeated the action a second time with the shortest chain and the fob medallion.

“There,” he said, handing the set toward Greg.

“How do I wear it?” Greg asked, honestly bewildered.

Mycroft looked at him, and laughter sparked. “How impressive do you want to look?”

“Um…”

Mycroft laughed, then, and said, “I’ll spare you the more cheeky arrangement, then… I’ll have to…” He ducked his head and moved his hands forward, indicating that he was going to be approaching Greg’s trousers. “I’m safe. I don’t bite.”

The laughter of a crow suggested he might bite, though—a little. If asked nicely. Greg didn’t know what to make of it, but it was fascinating.

Mycroft clipped the belaying clip to the belt-loop nearest Greg’s fly, then drapped the fob so it swung down a good two or three inches, a small, gleaming pendulum by Greg’s crotch. Then he tucked the whistle, on its long silver chain, into Greg’s trouser pocket, and the watch into the little watch pocket, their two chains making nesting arcs, one swinging below the other. The chains were weighty and solid, gleaming. The fob was a blatant tease.

Mycroft straightened, and checked his work, before looking away. “There. You can play with other arrangements, but you should be able to use both the watch and the whistle this way. And it looks good.”

Back in the days when he’d dealt with Punk bands and mosh pits, Greg had worn chains as jewelry: big, heavy things intended to imply a degree of toughness and brutality actually alien to him. As he looked down he thought that this was a rather refined, adult version of the same idea: masculine, bragging a bit, demanding attention—but doing so in a way that felt far more natural to him at fifty than his old chains would have.

“Wow,” was all he could think to say. “I mean…wow. That’s…wow.”

Mycroft was looking away, still. “You…like it?”

“Love it. You said you had it already?”

“Oh, the watch, mostly. And the chains, well—I collect watches and watch chains, after all. I’d had this awhile. Much of what I wear is gold, and this is a particularly nice silver chain. And I had the watch. When I saw your fob, I just thought,” he shrugged. “It seemed right for them to be together. I doubt they are the original pairing, but they’re right for each other. So…”

He was still not looking at Greg. After a moment, the older man asked, “What are you not looking at?”

Mycroft looked back, surprised, though his face remained still—then he looked quickly away again. “Sorry. Whatever is going on with the charm, it’s made your aura as clear as you find mine. I’ve been trying to avoid looking.”

“That bad?” Lestrade said.

“No, no,” Mycroft said. “Manners. I…intrude enough. I thought to leave you some privacy.”

“Ah.” An idea that had never occurred to him. “Should I be averting my eyes, too?”

Mycroft grimaced. “Not really. In magical circles it’s considered a bit over the top, really. It’s just so much of what I do is theoretically over the top…”

MI6, Greg thought with a grin. Rather than make a deal of it, he said, “Ok, then. I know I’ve told you what yours looks like to me. Poplar trees and sunshine and breeze and birds and things. What’s mine look like to you?”

Mycroft turned a bit pink, and said, “Oh—ocean. Warm ocean with big breakers. I think the kind people surf on, but—big. They roll in and in, and I keep having to remind myself I won’t get my shoes wet.” He smiled—the first simple, natural smile he’d smiled that day. It was small, and shy, and unexpectedly boyish. “When we were small Mummy and Father used to take us to the beach on warm days. My favorite part was the tide pools.” His hand opened and shut reflexively, and his smile grew. “Starfish—starfish and whelks.”

Greg had grown up in Somerset, by the sea. He’d been mucking through tide pools since infancy. “Do you sail?” he asked.

“Small scale. Not well. By the time I was old enough,” he shrugged. “They finally sent us to school. I row well, though. And punt.”

“I’ll have to teach you someday,” Greg said, then remembering for the first time since he’d arrived that this was a business meeting, he sighed, and drew out his cell phone. “Anyway,” he said, a bit reluctantly, “I’ve got new information on Martinez and her little friends.” He sat, and felt the heavy chains slide over his thigh, and said, smiling, “And thank you for the watch and chain. I—appreciate it. Really. Thank you.”

It was only later that evening, though, as he sat at home turning the gaudy little set over in his hands, exploring every inch, that he opened the clock face and found the inscription, the font matching that of the medal, saying, “Dignus et Honoratus.”

He looked it up online. It meant “Worthy and honored.”

He shivered, and could have sworn somewhere a happy little titmouse was flipping from branch to branch in golden sunlight.


End file.
